A windfall of birds swept up in last weekend’s storm found refuge on the island as Hurricane Ernesto made a direct hit before dawn last Saturday.

The high number and range of species left by the weather system, from laughing gulls and bridled terns to a specimen of the magnificent frigatebird, Fregata magnificens, brought a buzz of excitement for members of the public as well as the birdwatching community.

Paul Watson, a committee member of the Bermuda Audubon Society, said: “Ernesto dumped a massive number of birds, which is fairly typical of a small hurricane.

“If the eye passes over a landmass, which it obviously did for us, it gives a lot of birds the opportunity to drop out and find somewhere to shelter.

“What was really interesting, where Bernard Park flooded, was the volume not just of birds but ordinary people stopping to take photos with their phones of birds that they were not used to seeing.”

Standing with other Audubon society members by the waterlogged recreational field, Mr Watson saw passers-by “stopping, amazed to see all these birds just five feet in front of them feeding”.

He added: “It’s cool to see, and it gets people interested in the environment.”

Exhausted from their journey, the birds fed on earthworms driven out of soil by the rain, with 28 species on display — half of them shorebirds, Mr Watson said.

Andrea Webb, another birder, got up close to a distinctive yellow and olive hooded warbler at Ferry Point in St George’s.

“You never know what’s going to come in,” she said. “There has been a lot of terns, quite a few laughing gulls.

“We normally get hooded warblers in the wintertime but this came early.

“They don’t tend to come out that often, but this was right out in the open. My daughter spotted it first.”

Mr Watson said seabirds in particular were snatched by the hurricane, and tended to concentrate in the back end of the storm because they fly into the wind.

He added: “As it passed on, we had a massive fallout of these shorebirds that tend to nest in the Arctic tundra and migrate south.”

Mr Watson said: “We had a massive influx of laughing gulls, which are common in the US and the Caribbean. A large number were brought up to us. We see one or two throughout the year, but there were 50 or 60 up at Cooper’s Island.

“There was a big influx of terns. The really interesting one was the bridled tern, which is seen very infrequently in Bermuda.”

Other refugees from the storm included swallows and warblers.

Miguel Mejías, another Audubon committee member, said many birds would be left drained by the storm, and needed protection from dogs and cats once on land.

“If members of the public find any dead or exhausted birds, kindly bring them to the Bermuda Aquarium so that they can be rehabbed,” Dr Mejías said.

“Dead birds can be prepared as museum specimens for scientific record-keeping for the Bermuda Natural History Museum.”

He said the vagrant laughing gulls swept to the island likely came from Puerto Rico or Hispaniola in the Caribbean.

At least 200 of the birds, named after their laugh-like call, were blown in and sought out the island to top up on bait fish and “anything that washes up”, Dr Mejías said.

Bridled terns are pantropical ocean birds found in tropical oceans across the globe.

Dr Mejías said: “These birds are kind of like the longtail — when they aren’t breeding, they’re out on the open ocean.”

The island’s previous record for the species was in 2010.

Not all the birds carried to Bermuda survived the stress, while others were weakened and looking to recharge before heading on.

Dr Mejías said: “Many will spend a few months or weeks here, using Bermuda to refuel before making the journey back.

“Like the bald eagle we had, they might spend a whole year here.

“It’s just a reminder of how Bermuda gets its breeding birds as a remote oceanic island. Some individuals may stay and breed here and become permanent residents.”